Fast Shadow
by Sakura Lain
Summary: This is a very different version of Hiei's childhood after the Koorime abandoned him.
1. Raised in a Pack of Thieves

Disclaimer: I will only state this once, so listen closely…I don't own Yu Yu Hakusho.  The original owner is Yoshihiro Togashi so thank him for providing us with such a wonderful anime.

"Fast Shadow" by Shimoku

CHAPTER 1: "Raised in a Pack of Thieves"

          To find a baby slowly floating on a river, barely conscious, is a very unusual experience.  It could either be a good thing or a bad thing.  The thing is, there _was_ a child who had been found floating on a river.  There was such a child, where a pack of thieves retrieved him from the river and raised him as if he were part of the whole gang.  And this boy always carried a tear gem with himself.  The thieves had named this boy…Hiei, meaning "Fast Shadow."  Although he didn't know anything about his past at all the boy had made it a personal mission to find his original homeland.  He wasn't very fond of the thieves, since most of them treated him like trash.  But there was one particular thief, Tenek, who showed compassion for the boy, though he rarely admitted it.

          But as rough as they were with him, Hiei did have some things to thank the thieves for.  With many years of hard work, most of which was assigned by the thieves, Hiei was able to learn how to defend himself and fight for himself.  He gained excellent thievery skills and was taught in the art of agility.  For thieves, agility is a very important aspect.  Without agility, you wouldn't be able to run from a crime or steal anything in the first place.  However, Hiei seemed to be rather gifted when it came to agility.  In fact, he surpassed even the greatest of the pack, making many thieves jealous and want to hurt the boy even more.

          A rather hard and working day was ahead of the pack of thieves, as they planned to invade the land of Koorime, an ice land, and steal some of its deepest and most cherished treasures.  Hiei, who was busy helping the thieves pack some food for the long trip, was rather grumpy that morning.  Not only were the majority of the thieves there bullying him again, but he had also had that dream again where he found himself being thrown down a river fall.  He found this dream rather disturbing.

          But maybe he should have left all of his thoughts on that dream for a later time, as he had accidentally crashed into Roboro, one of the pack's toughest demons.  Hiei dropped every cinch of food he had been carrying and stepped back to look into Roboro's eyes.  "Well, if it isn't little teeny tiny Hiei, trying to carry more than he can bear.  You should leave such hard work for _real_ demons," said Roboro, a very nasty glint hidden in his eyes.  Hiei bent down to pick up whatever he let fall, but Roboro pushed him back even further.  "Chose to ignore me, eh?" And as Roboro pulled out a very large axe, the audience around them couldn't help but notice the sudden smirk across the eight-year-old boy's face.

          Hiei was gone the very moment Roboro brought down his axe to swing at him.  Everyone looked up at the nearest, yet tallest, tree and found the boy casually sitting on one of the tree's branches.  His smirk growing wider, the boy finally said, "Try that small trick of yours on an under-class demon; like you, for example.  Always wanted someone to get rid of you for me."

          Though Hiei had won that battle, he had yet to win the war.  No matter how many demons he killed or taunted, the dissatisfaction was always the same: loneliness, sadness, and anger.  As much as Hiei wanted to join the pack on their trip to Koorime, Tenek refused to let the boy go.  "I would let you come if it were up to me," Tenek told him.  "But remember that most of the others dislike you very much and rather leave you here alone with a few of the pack.  And trust me, I _know_ you can't take on the whole pack even if you wanted to."

          And so, Hiei was left to sit alone by the riverbank and cope yet again with a new anger for Tenek, sadness, and even more loneliness.  Sometimes, it had occurred to him why he was in this place in the first place. These thieves were hardly any family at all, and how could he consider them to be?  About ninety-nine percent of the pack _hated_ him.  And it made him lonely, not having a person to care for or someone to care for him.  Not having _family_.  Tenek had watched the boy in the riverbank from afar, feeling sorry for him.  But then again, he had a trip to attend to and so he had to leave Hiei sitting all alone.

          Pulling out the necklace that held on to his tear gem, Hiei could think of nothing more except wonder about who had given him such a beautiful thing.  His biggest bet was on Tenek, though a part of him doubted it.  Tenek was the nicest of all of the thieves, but even Tenek himself had his limits.  He never gave Hiei any of their stolen treasures and still treated Hiei like any other demon in their gang.  In fact, the only things that Tenek ever did to help Hiei was give him more rations of food than the leftover ones that Hiei was always assigned to.  And the only other thing Tenek ever gave him was someone to talk to.  Not many times did they speak, but once in a while they would sit around the river and speak of just about anything.  Hiei especially loved to talk about how ugly some of the thieves in their gang were and Tenek wouldn't hesitate to give him the right to make fun of them at all.

          But Tenek would never give him a tear gem.

          Tucking the gem aside, Hiei had perhaps the most paranoid idea.  But if Tenek wouldn't allow him to go to Koorime with them, then he'd just have to find a way to get there by himself.


	2. Discovering the Fire Within

_Note: Readers, please remember that this is MY version of what happened in Hiei's past.  Some things will remain similar while others will change a lot.  For example, in this chapter, Shigure (the man who gives Hiei his Jagan) will be very old even though in the anime he doesn't look like he's really old.  Consider him some kind of elder in here._

CHAPTER 2: "Discovering the Fire Within"

          Tenek and the others returned after a few days, fully loaded with many bags of treasure.  In the meanwhile, however, Hiei had spent exactly eight days avoiding trouble with the other demons in the camp.  In fact, he had even been nice to the lot as he excitedly planned when he was going to sneak up to Koorime.  He patiently waited for the day Tenek returned, since he was planning to put his plan into action thereafter.

          Tenek had arrived soon, to ask Hiei of a request.  Holding out a piece of parchment with writing on it, he said, "Well, little man.  I see you've grown a bit in these past few days.  Would you mind giving this parchment to Roboro?  It's very important."  Hiei stared at the parchment in Tenek's hand, not making a single move to take it.  "Look, I know how you and Roboro don't get along," began Tenek, "but – "

          "I'll take it," said Hiei quickly.  "Just please shut up about the whole understanding thing."

          And as he took the parchment and left behind a very puzzled looking Tenek, Hiei began to feel bitter.  He hated it how Tenek always tried to "understand" him.  He didn't know him, and he would never understand Hiei.  It was pity.  Yes, that's what it was.  Pity.  How he loathed that word.  Roboro was in his usual daily tasks – punishing those who weren't worthy of being in their pack.  Now that he thought about it, Roboro never wanted Hiei to be in their pack.  The only reason Roboro never banished him was because of Tenek.  A handful of begging and pleading made the headstrong Roboro to actually agree on something he despised.

          "Hn.  It's the little man," Roboro turned to face Hiei.  "Just what the hell are you doing here?"  Hiei held the parchment up, allowing Roboro to read the note that was meant for him.  A small smirk seemed to cross his face when he was done reading it.  "A banished soul, are you?" he said to Hiei.

          Hiei shook in anger.  Roboro took the piece of parchment from Hiei's hands, crumbled it, and told another demon to dispose of it.  After turning to see that Hiei hadn't move from his current position, he said, "Curious, aren't you?  I bet you wanted to know what was in that note, didn't ya?  The mystery of how you were deserted all alone has been revealed."

          Hiei's eyes widened.  "What the hell are you saying?"  But Roboro chose to ignore him.  A bad choice.  Shaking in anger, Hiei balled his hands into fists and tackled Roboro down.  How a small eight year old managed to tackle down such a large demon was a mystery, but that soon didn't matter as the whole commotion turned into an out-roar.  Demons who were standing near jumped on Hiei, trying to tear the boy apart from Roboro.  But Hiei's anger had suddenly turned into flames.  His skin suddenly turned so unbearably hot, making anyone holding onto him to let go.

          "Hiei!" Tenek turned up to see Roboro being beaten by a Hiei engulfed in flames.  "Hiei, stop that!  We have a guest!"  Hiei immediately stopped, the flames around him disappearing and his skin still burning hot.  As Hiei moved away from Roboro, Tenek was immediately next to Roboro, ushering words into the demon's ear: "…I told you to go easy on him…why'd you tick him off…?"

          Ignoring the words that he had managed to hear, Hiei began to head off but a very cold hand ran its way to his shoulder.  He shivered from the hold and looked up at the man-looking demon that was obviously the guest Tenek was talking about.  "I see you are the small child Tenek and his gang retrieved from the river.  A very lucky thing, indeed, to survive such an aggressive river."

          "Hn."

          "I see that you are the strong, silent type.  Quite a bit of an uproar you made, young lad."

          "Hn."

          "My name is Shigure.  The last of the Jagans."  Hiei looked up and noticed for the first time that the man standing before him had a third eye right above his two natural ones.  "I see that you are very curious.  A very anticipated trait expected of young children like you."

          "What's a Jagan?" said the boy, ignoring that last comment.

          "Oh, us Jagans are able to see that which the naked eye cannot.  We can see _further_," replied Shigure, smiling down at the confused look from the child before him.  "You'll understand later.  Anyways, I see that you have your own source of power.  You must be a fire demon.  Were your parents fire demons as well?"

          Hiei looked away, trying to pretend as if he hadn't listened to that last part and was instead focused on Tenek healing the badly bruised Roboro.  But he couldn't fool Shigure.  Shigure looked at him patiently, waiting for an answer.  "I…don't know," Hiei replied.  "I never knew them."

          "Ah, I see," Shigure's expression didn't seem to change the slightest.  "I'd figure Tenek would have known at least _something_ from your background before just retrieving you from a river.  Ah well, I guess you're all just a mystery to all."

          _More like a worthless, ignored demon that completely lacks friends and family_, Hiei thought bitterly.  Now that he thought about it, Roboro had said something about a revelation after reading that note from Tenek.  Maybe he should have just taken a peek at it before he had handed it to Roboro…

          "Ah, I see you've met Shigure, Hiei," Tenek came up to them.  He had healed Roboro while the two talked and now Roboro left, keeping a cold eye on Hiei.  Hiei glared back, feeling his anger rise through his veins again.  Tenek seemed to notice this and stepped in between, allowing Roboro to leave out of sight.  "Eh, anyway…Shigure, this is Hiei, the boy we retrieved from – "

          "The river, yes," Shigure finished for him.  "I'm afraid we've already introduced ourselves, Tenek."  All three eyes of Shigure kept a look on Tenek and then moved on to Hiei.  Suddenly feeling nauseous, Hiei made up some excuse to get out of there.  Shigure seemed to make his skin prickle; it was like the man was staring deep into his soul.  It disturbed Hiei.  Then he remembered about what had happened with Roboro.  When he was angry, he had fire surrounding him.  Shigure told him that only fire demons are able to do such things.  Taking his usual seat on a tree, Hiei smirked as he looked down at his hands.  Either way, one thing was for sure.  His parents certainly weren't from the ice land of Koorime.


End file.
